


she is made of ink

by AquaAmaryllis



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Eating Disorders, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 10:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30087927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaAmaryllis/pseuds/AquaAmaryllis
Summary: Nami is eight, stealing navigation books and working on her chartsShe is thirteen, dead inside and drawing maps until her hand can literally not move anymore.Nami is eighteen and holding her pencil too tightly when she makes her first friends. She is her mother's daughter at last, free.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	she is made of ink

Nami is eight, stealing navigation books and working on her charts.

She gets scolded by Bell-mere, her mother cooks them a desert that tastes like tangerines and motherly love. 

Nami is eight when she wakes up, head between her arms over the dinner table. The few books she has and clumsily drawn maps all neatly put in a pile next to her head, the blanket covering her keeps her warm.

"Idiot! Don't sleep on the table like that, we need to eat y'know!" She runs after Nojiko, face flushed in anger and teeth bared. 

Bell-mere laughs, ruffling both their hair as she stops the two little girls from running out, "You two eat before it gets cold."

Nami doesn't notice her mother not eating besides the single orange fruit, Nojiko does.

She doesn't say anything and everything is right in their little world.

* * *

_(the wind picks up, taking away laughter and silly dreams)_

* * *

She is thirteen, dead inside and drawing maps until her hand can literally not move anymore.

Arlong is cruel and vicious. Nami takes it, a small voice cackling that she deserves it for killing her mother.

She misses Bell-mere and playing in the tangerine groves with Nojiko. Nojiko who has wild blue hair and who is her sister, her _real_ sister no matter what she might've once said. _(she was so stupid)_

Because Nojiko is not blood but she is shared memories of Bell-mere and crooked grins. There's not more real than that if you asked her, Nami doesn't deserve it.

_(she doesn't deserve much)_

Her outlines are now perfect, none of the clumsy thing it used to be. Everything is accurate - not one small detail missing from the charts and maps. Arlong is impressed, she feels sick.

Sick because now she can eat to her heart's content and if Arlong is cruel he will not do anything that would harm the quality of her work. So she eats more than she ever did with Bell-mere and throws everything up afterwards. 

Hachi sees her being sick once, clutching at her stomach so hard her nails draw blood into thin angry red lines across it.

The fishman looks so deeply shocked it makes her surge forward once more, almost falling into the trash can. He stays there quiet for a while, observing her.

He looks like he might say something, he doesn't and leaves her alone with her misery.

Sometimes, she wonders if the pirate actually needs her maps or if it's something else that makes him keep her locked inside. Something like another little girl with short locks of amber, another little girl with wide eyes the color of despair.

He hits her for the first time when she asks who Koala is. _(the ocean weeps)_

It's at thirteen she gets the crew's tattoo on her arm, the man who does it is human and has seen her grow up. His face is tinted green and she mistakes it for disgust towards herself.

The ink burns her skin, burns it's way through her limb and travels through the rest of her body to tear everything apart. Because _she murdered her mother_ and this is a reminder.

_(come back Bell-mere, please)_

_(I'm sorry)_

She catches Nojiko's eye a few weeks later - it's Nami's fourteenth birthday and the Arlong pirates have the gall to throw her a party.

They don't care that July 3rd is not even the day that she was born, that it's the day Bell-mere, Nojiko and her chose to celebrate.

The 3rd of July for the day her mother found them, rain pouring down over their heads ruthlessly. July 25th is Nojiko's birthday, for the day when Bell-mere decided to officially adopt them.

She vomits all of the sugary cake Arlong got her, it tastes nothing like Bell-mere's homemade one. She laughs, loud and ugly - the laugh of a thief and pirate, claiming it's the whiskey.

Even the monster who murdered her mother looks distinctly uncomfortable. _(look, look at the monster you created)_

The next day she's off on some run down raft for the closest island to steal some nobles. Soon, she promises to herself she'll be free. Free to hug her sister and to take care of Bell-mere's tangerines.

* * *

_(spoiler alert : time doesn't flow any faster)_

* * *

Nami is eighteen and holding her pencil too tightly when she makes her first friends. She is her mother's daughter at last, free.

It's at eighteen she comes across Luffy and Zoro, bitter and full of hate. Zoro dismisses her, rightfully so and that's fine. What is not fine is Luffy, that _stupid_ boy with his _stupid_ smile and _stupid_ talks of dreams.

She hates him. She hates him because he actually makes her feel hope and that is unacceptable.

_(murderer)_

She would destroy him, tear away at the goodness she has never seen in a pirate. She doesn't want to. _(she ends up doing it anyway, stealing his ship from right underneath his nose like the betrayer she is)_

Her worn palms get bloody crescent marks in the form of her nails as she steers the Going Merry away. Guiltis not new, it eats at her the same, just tears her from the inside at a quicker pace.

She goes back to Arlong, a thief and a pirate and a mother-killer. 

_(I want to stay with them, don't make me go back there)_

She does so anyway, Arlong's shark-like smile haunting her.

_(I want to go back to them)_

She doesn't. 

Luffy is the one who comes to her. _(or well Usopp who she cannot bare to hurt and then Zoro who is still just as bitter and as mean as her)_

They're all there, she doesn't understand. She doesn't understand because _Nami wouldn't come for Nami_ and yet here they are.

_(save me)_

"Of course I will!" the strawhat on her head is light, like hope and dreams _and Luffy._

_(he saves her)_

He wins. Arlong falls and that horrible, horrible room is blown apart.

Nami falls with Arlong, she falls to her knees and admit defeat in the midst of her tears. _(you win, I'll join your crew)_

The tears are followed by hysteric giggles. She builds herself back up, for him. 

Piece by piece for that _stupid-dumb-beautiful-wonderful_ boy she could never deserve. Leaving her sister should be hard, she just got Nojiko back after all. It isn't, she's already far too taken with Luffy.

Nojiko gives her that crooked grin of hers, shaking her head as delicate hands grab Nami's subtly scarred ones. "I love you, those people are good for you. Be happy Nami."

_(...happy?)_

Yes, Nojiko is her very real sister who believes that Nami deserves happiness even when the girl does not. 

Ink covers the shoulder she tore apart with a blade, this time the man tattooing looks fond and more than glad to work on her skin. It is ragged and uneven in coloring, but once the tattoo is done there is not a trace of Arlong left.

She can finally breathe. She's not sure she remembers how to, Sanji dotes on her and gives her the warmest of smiles that evening when he serves dinner.

It's brief, but only because a rubbery limb flew into his face harshly. 

Luffy is fighting against invisible foes for food that is not about to go out - if ever, he ignores Sanji's annoyed ranting. Usopp lets out a screech as he narrowly escapes a bone.

She throws her head back and laughs a belly laugh that silences the room without her noticing.

Even Luffy has stopped his butchering of good food - like they could listen to her laugh all day, she blushes. Zoro indebts himself when he snorts, _witch_ he says like it is still an insult.

Nami is eighteen and learning how to breathe again. 

She is eighteen and _happy._


End file.
